“Where are the people?” Claud asked, his voice low and guttural as he surveyed the caves in front of him.

“W-what people?” one of the frightened bandits asked.

“You guys have been doing this for some time, yes?” Claud asked, glaring at the speaker. “Where are those you brought back?”

“Why would we bring anyone back?” The bandit shivered once. “We didn’t bring anyone back!”

“So after you had your way with the women, you killed them?” Lily asked, unsheathing her sword with a metallic hiss. “Might as well just kill—”

“Wait, wait!” The bandit fell onto his knees. “We didn’t do no woman! We’re good people! Good bandits! We don’t do things like that! We’re innocent! We don’t take women or children or men! We also have our wives helping us in this! Even if we want to, they won’t let us!”

“Eh?” Claud blinked, and the raging anger in his stomach cooled down lightly. He motioned at the still-unconscious fellow who had spoken just now. “Then what’s with this guy asking me for my wife?”

“It’s just easier to get them to surrender that way,” the bandit replied in a small voice. “We tell them that we want everything, and then pretend to show mercy by letting their family off. We don’t want no trouble. We just tell them to never come back home.”

Claud fell silent, a whirl of complicated feelings in his heart. It was great that he actually reined in the urge to kill earlier, since if this were true, he would have killed people that didn’t quite deserve it. And on the other side of the balance…

He narrowed his eyes and calmed down. “You said your wives are here, right? Lead us over. We’ll interrogate them.”

The kneeling bandit nodded over and over again, before getting up. Trembling, he said, “F-follow me, sir and madam.”

Lily glanced at the other trembling bandits once, her chilly glance making them all freeze up. “Run, and we’ll break your legs. All three of them.”

None of them dared to speak back, and Claud followed the trembling fellow, Lily at his side. He took the chance to observe the intricate network of caves as he entered, and after going through two caves, they stopped at a communal area, where women were working on some food with kids.

“Kids too?” Lily asked.

“Family,” the bandit replied. “And—”

“Papa!” A little boy ran over and hugged him. “Welcome back! Who are these people? Are they going to join us?”

The bandit was about to reply when Lily stepped forward and squatted down. “Hey, buddy. Does your papa bring people back?”

“No. It’s boring…I wish he’d bring some people back.” The boy pouted. “It’s boring here. Papa tells us to study and study, and it never ends. He doesn’t let us play outside either.”

Claud narrowed his eyes. By the looks of it, the other kids also faced the same issue of being stuck here…but why would they be? He turned to the women standing around, and then immediately noted traces of living in the rough.

“Ladies,” said Claud, “do your husbands bring people back after their…work outside?”

The women looked at each other, and then replied in the negative. From the looks of it, it was possible that they didn’t quite understand what was going on so far, which made their reply more credible. He surveyed the area once more, and then shook his head twice at Lily.

Passing a little chocolate over to the surprised boy, Lily stood back up and motioned at the cave entrance. Within moments, the two of them had reconvened with the other bandits, who had wisely chosen to remain here. Lily’s face had lost every single bit of that freezing chill earlier, and she was now looking at them with as much confusion as Claud himself felt.

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

“You guys decided to become bandits…and nearly died, really.” Lily glanced at the bandits. “That was probably the stupidest line we’ve ever heard.”

“Mana-folders don’t become merchants,” mumbled the bandit that had brought them in.

Schwarz’s face popped up in Claud’s head immediately, and he had to hide a smile. Lily, on her part, simply raised an eyebrow. “You’d be surprised. Anyway, you guys should count yourselves lucky that my husband didn’t kill everyone off the bat.”

She closed her eyes for a moment. “Now, we’re here on orders of Count Lostfon. You guys have been hampering the supply routes of his people and the Dark. Surrender and return with us, and nobody gets hurt. And if there’s a good reason behind all this, you might even be spared.”

Claud remained silent. That second bit definitely hadn’t been said earlier, but he was confident in Lily’s ability to negotiate with the Dark Herald and Count Lostfon. Besides, killing them wasn’t necessary at all. If they swore off their bandit work, that would be perfectly fine too.

“They’ll kill us, right?” someone asked.

“Not on my watch,” Lily replied. “Or so I would like to say. However, why did you resort to doing such things? If you give a good motive, and swear never to do this again, I’m sure your city lord will spare you.”

The bandits looked at each other. “Really?”

“We’ll stand on your side if they try to do anything to you,” Lily replied. “And there’s a critical manpower shortage in Lostfon anyway. Might be able to live there without any black mark…by the way, what happened to the stolen goods?”

“Someone took them.”

“Someone?” Lily asked. “Did that person have a part in making you guys bandits? Are there any more of you guys doing the same thing?

The bandit trembled once, and then took a deep breath. “A rainbow. And…I don’t think so. Not yet.”

Claud narrowed his eyes a moment later as he took in the implications of these two words. The rainbow was an informal way of referring to the Coloured Gods, although one would assume that the Black God and the White God weren’t included in this particular imagery. However, mixing paints of the seven different colours formed black paint, while shining lights of the seven different colours on the same place created white light instead.

Therefore, the rainbow also included the Black God and the White God. The more pertinent question, however, was the reason behind their interference here.

“…We should have this talk in a safer place,” Lily replied. “If I were you guys, I would try to make the Dark Herald and Count Lostfon promise to spare you in return for information, housing and resources integral to living here.”

The bandit nodded once.

“Then go. Get your families out. We’re returning to Lostfon.” Lily folded her arms. “Hurry.”

The bandits got up and rushed into the cave with all due haste, leaving behind the unconscious fellow on the ground. Trusting that his comrades would bring him along, Claud turned to Lily. “Do you think Count Lostfon will spare them?”

“If they did as I suggested, he’ll probably spare them. And the city needs all the people it can get right now too,” Lily replied. “And the Dark Herald probably won’t give a crap about the fate of these people as long as they stop holding up the supply lines.”

“The only question lies in the people instigating them to rob these supplies,” Claud replied. “And the intelligent fellow earlier implied that they were currently the only group. There might be others in the next few days.”

“There can’t be that many,” Lily replied. “The flight from Lostfon happened in a very short window.”

“We’ll see. For now, we can escort them back and sit in on the investigations. Given that their entire families are returning, they shouldn’t be too keen to lie…and Count Lostfon probably won’t be too keen to punish either.”

He paused. “Probably.”

“That’s the line of logic I was going with too,” Lily replied. “Anyway, aren’t you glad that you didn’t just kill all of them earlier?”

“Yeah.” Claud fell silent. “Funny, I guess. I couldn’t bear the thought of…”

“Us being actually forced into such a predicament, right?” Lily asked. “Turned out that the guy didn’t actually mean it. But that was probably dumb. Like really dumb.”

“Right? He nearly died.” Claud closed his eyes and thought to the near-death escape the idiot shouting had. If he had been a bit tougher, a bit more forceful, those needles he sent out would have killed that fellow.

It would have been too harsh a punishment.

“Here, we see the importance of saying the right things at the right time, I guess.” Lily patted his shoulder. “I’m glad you restrained yourself.”

“I’ve had enough guilt. I’m happy I didn’t…” Claud shook his head and hugged Lily. “Thanks. For stopping me.”

“You don’t like the idea of killing, and you’ve been forced to confront the idea that those you’ve already killed might not actually be guilty.” Lily looked at him. “Then don’t. If they are really killers, there’ll naturally be avengers aiming for them.”

“…You’re speaking from experience, right?” Claud asked, looking at Lily.

“I confirmed my family’s guilt over and over. Everyone who died that night was guilty,” Lily replied. “I don’t regret that.”

Claud mulled over those words thoughtfully, holding Lily close the whole time.